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  1. wonky love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Chiefly British Shaky; feeble.
  2. adj. Chiefly British Wrong; awry.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. chiefly UK, Australia, New Zealand Lopsided, misaligned or off-centre.
  2. adj. chiefly UK, Australia, New Zealand Feeble, shaky or rickety.
  3. adj. computing Suffering from intermittent bugs; broken.
  4. adj. Generally incorrect.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. inclined to shake as from weakness or defect
  2. adj. turned or twisted toward one side

Etymologies

  1. From English dialectal wanky, alteration of Middle English wankel ("unstable, shaky"), from Old English wancol ("unstable"), from Proto-Germanic *wankulaz (“swaying, shaky, unstable”), from Proto-Germanic *wankōnan (“to sway, be unsteady”), from Proto-Indo-European *wa(n)k-, *wek-, *wag-, *weg- (“to swing, be unsteady, slant, be crooked”). Cognate with Scots wankle ("wonky"), Dutch wankel ("shaky"), German Wankelmut ("fickleness, inconstancy, vacillation"), Danish vanke ("to wander"). See also wankle. (Wiktionary)
  2. Probably alteration of dialectal wanky, alteration of wankle, from Middle English wankel, from Old English wancol, unsteady. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “Now, if only their email "validation" wasn't so friggin wonky ... and you could have more than one email address ... sammysam”

    Superminder Makes Managing Reminders A Snap | Lifehacker Australia

  • “Really? and not one point of view is backed up with any substance; the snobbery about the orbit, for example, which is twice so lazily described as wonky, does not shed any light on mr long's objection to the idea or the execution. in fact re-reading this - out of sheer disbelief - i find no real content whatsoever. a terrible article, a terrible journalist.”

    Evening Standard - Home

  • “It's not terribly wonky, which is good, but it isn't light on specifics, either ...”

    Blogrunner

  • “They came out a bit wonky, which is alright, because I was too anxious to see it finished to worry about physiological accuracy.”

    Chicken Blog

  • “Chicago is known as a wonky school full of nerdy intellectual types so it wasn't surprising that I was able to easily gather a group willing to pick up this 1079 page cinderblock.”

    Phawker

  • “The new rules being developed may seem "wonky" but are important because the national forests provide drinking water for 124 million people in more than 900 cities nationwide and habitat for more rare species than national parks, said Jane Danowitz, public lands director for the Pew Environment Group.”

    The Huffington Post: Forest Service Seeks More Control

  • “Also, I made three attempts on a kind of wonky, mostly-overhung 5. 7+ that I get all freaked out by the traverse on.”

    I am just a poor boy and my story's seldom told

  • “The internet connection there is kind of wonky, but Shawn's brother was just there and he was working on getting wireless up and running again -- so maybe I'll be able to check in and post ocassionally.”

    Day in the Life of an Idiot

  • “If you looked up the work 'wonky' in the dictionary, you'd see that first cake in the definition.”

    Rooby Dooby DOOO!!!

  • “Despite the fact that the petition was, as Kurtz said, kind of "wonky," you immediately grasped its importance; it is highly problematic for someone as hawkish and conservative as Lieberman, who has publicly endorsed John McCain and backs the Bush-McCain war in Iraq, to hold a high ranking seat in the Democratic caucus.”

    ZP Heller: A Grassroots Victory: Lieberman Must Go!

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synonyms (3)

Words with the same meaning

  1. lonkie
  1. skew-whiff
  1. awry

equivalents (2)

Other words for ‘wonky’

  1. unstable
  1. crooked

same context (16)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. depressed..hehe
  2. femtosecond
  3. one-card
  1. glassy-eyed
  2. off-base
  3. tip-tilted
  1. thingy
  2. hokey
  3. gynecological
  1. open-end
  2. light-headed
  3. hawklike
  1. ruskinian
  2. woozy
  3. highly-wrought
  1. blue-violet

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘wonky’.

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Comments

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  • dontcry See wonkie. Oct 8, 2008

  • reesetee Wait--there are only 8,000 sub-genres of techno music? Sep 24, 2007

  • cameron Internet equivalent: borked. Sep 24, 2007

  • purpleboy A good word for something a little messed up. Almost like out of whack. Sep 24, 2007

  • seanahan I like that, "Wonky code". I'll have to use that myself. Sort of like heisenbug. Dec 13, 2006

  • john I usually use this word when describing something that's slightly, vaguely broken (like a bug that's intermittent, and not catastrophic. I launch a lot of wonky code, and then polish it up after the fact). But it's also apparently one of the 8,000 sub-genres of techno music. Dec 13, 2006

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‘wonky’ has been looked up 3058 times, loved by 6 people, added to 76 lists, commented on 6 times, and has a Scrabble score of 15.